2017 Halloween International Film Festival

The 2nd Annual Halloween International Film Festival returned to Kill Devil Hills, NC for three days, October 26-28, featuring a total of 46 Official Selection independent films from eight different countries around the world, in addition to a special Showcase Selection screening of The Houses October Built 2.

HALLOWEEN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2017 AWARD WINNERS

Best Feature Film –SIGHTINGS (dir. by Dallas Morgan) [Read REVIEW]

Best Short Film – IN MY ROOM (dir. by Michael Trainotti)

Best Actress – JORDAN PHIPPS (Close Calls) [Read INTERVIEW]

Best Actor – STEVEN BERKOFF (Steven Berkoff’s Tell Tale Heart)

Best Halloween Film – THE HAUNT (dir. by Isabel Cueva)

Best International Film – CHARISMATA (dir. by Andy Collier and Toor Mian)

Best North Carolina Film – TABLE 51 (dir. by Joe Day) [Watch It Online!]

Breakthrough Filmmaker – ROB COUSINEAU (Future)

Scariest Film – BALLOON (dir. by Mitchell Slan)

In addition to the screenings, over a dozen local and visiting filmmakers attended the event and participated in Q&A sessions with the audience, as well as nightly meet and greets and photo ops on the Orange Carpet.

Highlights of this year’s feature films included 3 Dead Trick or Treaters, an experimental anthology from Canada that features no dialogue, the gritty thriller Charismata from the U.K., a new vision of the classic Edgar Allan Poe story in Steven Berkoff’s Tell Tale Heart, and the genre throwback Close Calls with lead actress Jordan Phipps in attendance for a Q&A on Thursday night Oct. 26.

Rounding out the feature film category was the sci-fi mindbender Future, the debut film from director Rob Cousineau, who was in attendance at the festival on Saturday Oct. 28, and the tale of a hungry Bigfoot in Sightings, from North Carolina-based filmmaker Dallas Morgan, who was also in attendance for his screening at 2pm on Thursday Oct. 26.

We also screened a strong collection of 40 short films screening over the three-day festival, including the clown terror of Balloon, the gothic horror of Ceatures of Whitechapel, the awesomely fun Oh, The Effing Horror, hilarious horror comedies Blood Sisters from Australia and The Barber’s Cut from the U.K., and the North Carolina Premiere of the stunning stop-motion animated The Funhouse Waltz from New Zealand.

In addition to the features 3 Dead Trick or Treaters and Future, both of which take place during our favorite holiday, the Halloween section of the festival also included the short films Dark Roast, Samhainophobia, The Haunt, The Cute Girl’s Guide to Halloween, and They Live Inside Us.

There were a total of 13 films screening that were made in North Carolina, including four shorts filmed on the historic Outer Banks, where the festival takes place – the award-winning Lost in Buffalo City, the tech nightmare Let’s Go, the World Premiere of the animated music video The Cthulhu Candidate, and the World Premiere of a dystopian look at the future in The Transgressor, each with the filmmakers in attendance.

The film festival culminated with a special Showcase screening of the horror sequel The Houses October Built 2, the third act of which takes place on the Outer Banks, as the closing film.

Houses director and co-star Bobby Roe told Halloween Daily News, “I’m excited that The Houses October Built 2 will be part of the Halloween International Film Festival at the end of this month. These movies have always been a love letter to Halloween and haunted houses above anything else. So the audience of HIFF is a perfect place to watch this adventure together. And even more of a bonus is the third acts takes place in the Outer Banks.

“I was born in South Carolina, so the coast of the Carolinas has always been special to me growing up and the remote location of the Outer Banks was the perfect spot for the finale because of it’s remoteness and mystery.”

Roe said he originally tried to set the finale of the sequel more specifically in Kill Devil Hills (where the film festival takes place), but thought people “wouldn’t believe that a city had that badass of a name.”

He added, “Unfortunately, we did not actually shoot in the Outer Banks for production purposes but at the end of the day, it is a big part of our lore, and The Blue Skeleton lore will only get bigger.”

We have loads of video highlights from the film festival Q&As and photos from the Orange Carpet that we will be sharing in the coming weeks, so keep watching OBX Entertainment for more from the 2017 Halloween International Film Festival.

Check out some of our 2017 photos from the Orange Carpet in the gallery below!

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On the Orange Carpet, (from left) HIFF co-founder Matt Artz; ‘Let’s Go’ writer/actor Tim Hass; ‘Midnight Shift’ director Dan Sellers; ‘Close Calls’ actress Jordan Phipps; ‘The Transgressor’ director Victoria Duncan; ‘The Transgressor’ actress Grace Folds; ‘Lost in Buffalo City’ director Raymond Wallace; HIFF co-founder Sue Artz; and ‘The Cthulhu Candidate’ director Alan Postscript, at the 2017 Halloween International Film Festival in Kill Devil Hills, NC on Oct 26, 2017. (photo: OBX Entertainment)

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